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Posted by Nick Gammon   Australia  (18,770 posts)  [Biography] bio   Forum Administrator
Date Mon 14 Sep 2009 10:12 PM (UTC)  [ quote  ]
Message
KaVir said:

Very nice indeed. So I could effectively create a graphical border around the main display, using the same theme as my website - and also use the same button styles as I use on my website?


Yes I don't see a problem with that.


KaVir said:

A large border would probably be undesirable as it would reduce the amount of space available for useful windows, but a small border could be used to help give the client the same look and feel as my website, which I think could prove more appealing to first-time mudders.


Well the size of the border is totally under your control. You may have a bigger one on the left, say, and put in status bars, buttons, minimap, etc. if you wanted to.
- Nick Gammon

www.gammon.com.au, www.mushclient.com
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Posted by KaVir   Germany  (114 posts)  [Biography] bio
Date Mon 14 Sep 2009 11:07 AM (UTC)  [ quote  ]

Amended on Mon 14 Sep 2009 11:42 AM (UTC) by KaVir

Message
Very nice indeed. So I could effectively create a graphical border around the main display, using the same theme as my website - and also use the same button styles as I use on my website?

A large border would probably be undesirable as it would reduce the amount of space available for useful windows, but a small border could be used to help give the client the same look and feel as my website, which I think could prove more appealing to first-time mudders.

It strikes me that this is pretty much full skinning support, and you could reasonably add it to the list of features that MUSHclient offers.
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Posted by Nick Gammon   Australia  (18,770 posts)  [Biography] bio   Forum Administrator
Date Mon 14 Sep 2009 10:23 AM (UTC)  [ quote  ]
Message
More recently, miniwindows let you put images behind or in front of your main text. You can also shift the scrolling text portion inwards from the edges.

See this thread for some examples:

http://www.gammon.com.au/mushclient/mw_other.htm

Also take a look at this:

http://www.gammon.com.au/forum/?id=9580

Miniwindows let you implement buttons and icons, there are examples of icons which you click to do things, with cooldown clocks on them, here:

http://www.gammon.com.au/forum/?id=9359
- Nick Gammon

www.gammon.com.au, www.mushclient.com
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Posted by KaVir   Germany  (114 posts)  [Biography] bio
Date Mon 14 Sep 2009 09:39 AM (UTC)  [ quote  ]
Message
Sorry for the thread necromancy, but this is the closest match I can find for my question: Did the concept of customisable skins go any further?

The summary for suggestion #402 is "Transparent option wanted", and (from reading this thread) it seems that that part of the suggestion has been addressed.

But what I'm interested in is the idea of customisable opaque backgrounds, colours, icons, buttons, etc, so that skins can be designed around specific mud themes.
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Posted by Nick Gammon   Australia  (18,770 posts)  [Biography] bio   Forum Administrator
Date Sat 01 Mar 2008 08:47 PM (UTC)  [ quote  ]
Message
A word of caution about using "keyed" transparency like in the above example.

I was playing around with another problem, when the "map" which appears in SMAUG FUSS seemed all broken up. It turned out the reason was that the map used gray | characters in it, and since I had made gray transparent, the desktop was showing through, making the map look really strange.

One fix is to go into the ANSI colour configuration, and change the "Bold black" colour (top one in the RH column) to be slighly different (eg. click on the "Darker" button once"), or simply edit that colour to make it a little different. That way the transparency no longer keys on the gray, and you don't get windows underneath showing through whenever there is gray text.
- Nick Gammon

www.gammon.com.au, www.mushclient.com
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Posted by Nick Gammon   Australia  (18,770 posts)  [Biography] bio   Forum Administrator
Date Thu 02 Nov 2006 01:32 AM (UTC)  [ quote  ]
Message

To illustrate that point, here is an example of making the gray background transparent, so you can see the desktop through it, but the rest is full opacity:

- Nick Gammon

www.gammon.com.au, www.mushclient.com
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Posted by Nick Gammon   Australia  (18,770 posts)  [Biography] bio   Forum Administrator
Date Wed 01 Nov 2006 11:55 PM (UTC)  [ quote  ]
Message
An interesting trick is to do this:


Transparency (GetSysColor (12), 255)


What this does is make the gray "frame background" colour transparent. Thus the MUSHclient worlds themselves are full intensity, but in the gaps between the worlds (and notepad windows) you can see the desktop underneath. I think someone was asking about that a while back.
- Nick Gammon

www.gammon.com.au, www.mushclient.com
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Posted by Nick Gammon   Australia  (18,770 posts)  [Biography] bio   Forum Administrator
Date Wed 01 Nov 2006 10:08 PM (UTC)  [ quote  ]
Message

Here is an example of a semi-transparent window:

- Nick Gammon

www.gammon.com.au, www.mushclient.com
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Posted by Nick Gammon   Australia  (18,770 posts)  [Biography] bio   Forum Administrator
Date Wed 01 Nov 2006 09:53 PM (UTC)  [ quote  ]
Message
New function added to version 3.83 to allow you to make the MUSHclient application transparent to the amount that you desire.
- Nick Gammon

www.gammon.com.au, www.mushclient.com
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Posted by Poromenos   Greece  (1,037 posts)  [Biography] bio
Date Mon 15 Mar 2004 12:59 PM (UTC)  [ quote  ]
Message
You would have the option to turn it off, that shouldn't be a big problem...
Vidi, Vici, Veni.
http://porocrom.poromenos.org/ Read it!
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Posted by Gore   (207 posts)  [Biography] bio
Date Mon 15 Mar 2004 09:14 AM (UTC)  [ quote  ]
Message
problem with transperency/skins is that, they generally cause the program to slow down.. and I use mushclient for it's speed, not the way it looks (I have a slow computer, heh)
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Posted by Shadowfyr   USA  (1,774 posts)  [Biography] bio
Date Sun 14 Mar 2004 03:21 AM (UTC)  [ quote  ]

Amended on Sun 14 Mar 2004 03:22 AM (UTC) by Shadowfyr

Message
Yeah. I figured they would tend to be. Purely transparent ones probably wouldn't be, since all they do is *not* draw the background. All forms of windows that employ transparency in the background, like the curved edges on Getright skins, use an image that gets drawn over the background. Normal windows are a solid color, so just use a quick fill that is handled by the windowing code.

The question I want answered is, "Is alphablend significantly slower than a solid image (with or without sections of transparency) and if so is the 2000/XP solution faster. If the result is like:

None = fastest.
Skin/partial transparent = slower.
Alphablend = slowest.
2000/XP alphablend = Something between the fastest and slowest.

If the last possibility above is true, then obviously checking the OS version or API to see if it supports that method and using it instead is much better than just using the 98/ME/NT version of alphablending. If alphablending is in fact slower (which is likely) than doing normal transparency or an image, then it makes sense to have the option to disable it on slower machines, same if it is in fact somehow slower to use an image that has transparent sections, instead of a solid one.

Knowing that it will be slower is a given, how much and which things should be used when available given the highest settings on a particular OS is an unknown.
main {
__if (Schrodinger_Cat is Alive or version >= "XP"){
____if version = "Vista" then Performance /= Number_of_Cores;
____call Functional_Code();}
__else
____call Crash_Windows();}
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Posted by Poromenos   Greece  (1,037 posts)  [Biography] bio
Date Sun 14 Mar 2004 01:13 AM (UTC)  [ quote  ]
Message
From what i've seen, transparent windows are a bit slow to redraw, etc, but that could be just an impression...
Vidi, Vici, Veni.
http://porocrom.poromenos.org/ Read it!
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Posted by Shadowfyr   USA  (1,774 posts)  [Biography] bio
Date Sat 13 Mar 2004 03:20 AM (UTC)  [ quote  ]
Message
Having talked with Magnum about this.. It is possible, depending on how it works under pre-2000/XP system to have settings to define the 'level' of transparency support and to use the full 2000/XP code when running on that for speed reasons. The levels would be:

1. No skin.
2. Solid skins.
3. Skinning with full transparent areas.
4. Alpha-skins 98/NT/ME. - dimmed out in settings and defaults to option 3 if on 95.
5. Alpha-skins 2000/XP. - dimmed out in settings and defaults to option 4 if on an earlier OS.

Depending on how/if alphablend() slows things down on 98, it may be slightly slower than doing skins with solid colors or patches that are completely transparent. This also means that it *may* be slower than the method in 2000/XP, so option 4 should automatically upgrade to 5 internally if on an XP system. Maybe only 4 options are needed in that case.

However, this is of course based on the assumption that a solid image will be handled differently than a full 32-bit by the OS or any real difference exists between them in speed. Some experiments are in order. Unfortunately I don't know enough C++ to make 'a' window, let alone one that has these effects. :(
main {
__if (Schrodinger_Cat is Alive or version >= "XP"){
____if version = "Vista" then Performance /= Number_of_Cores;
____call Functional_Code();}
__else
____call Crash_Windows();}
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Posted by Shadowfyr   USA  (1,774 posts)  [Biography] bio
Date Fri 12 Mar 2004 03:09 AM (UTC)  [ quote  ]
Message
Hmm. So basically Windows 2000 and XP provide an API to automatically employ an alpha value, where in 98, NT and ME you have to adjust the alphachannel of your image and use the AlphaBlend API call to draw it.

This just means you have to either ignore the API in 2000 and XP, then use your own implimentation that employs the AlphaBlend functions that 98, NT, ME, 2000 and XP all have and ignore the setting if in 95 *or* alternatively implement code to use the 2000/XP functions if running on that, the 98/NT/ME version if running there or ignore it under 95.... I think we would be better off and less bloated to go the first route and impliment something based on the code from my second link, which will work in everything except 95.
main {
__if (Schrodinger_Cat is Alive or version >= "XP"){
____if version = "Vista" then Performance /= Number_of_Cores;
____call Functional_Code();}
__else
____call Crash_Windows();}
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